Stettin / Szczecin

Three photographic postcards showing various locations in Stettin (Szczecin) before World War Two.

An old picture postcard of the river Oder (Odra) port area in Stettin (Szczecin) in around 1921. Click image to enlarge.

Stettin became an industrial city in the late 19th century and vastly increased in size and population, serving as a major port for Berlin. At the end of World War II Stettin’s status was in doubt, and the Soviet occupation authorities at first appointed officials from the city’s almost entirely German pre-war population. However, in July 1945, Polish authorities were permitted to take power. Stettin was renamed Szczecin and became part of Poland.

A photograph featuring Berliner Tor in Stettin, Pomerania, in the 1910s.

Following on from this Stettin, now called Szczecin, was demographically transformed from a German into a Polish city. The German population were expelled and Poles took their place. Most of Stettin’s settlers coming from deprived areas of Central Poland with a smaller number of Poles and Ukrainians from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union such as eastern Galicia.

The UFA Palast ‘Deutsches Familien Kaufhaus’ building in Stettin, c.1937.

Szczecin today

Szczecin (Stettin) is located on the Oder River, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. It is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland. It is the Poland’s seventh-largest city and a major seaport in Poland. The population of Szczecin is currently more than 400,000.